Five Suggestions for the MCU

Let’s face it, the MCU is killing it lately. You’re making hit after hit, and you don’t show signs of stopping anytime soon. Thor: Ragnarok seems like a lot of fun, Black Panther looks amazing, and you’ve still got Avengers: Infinity War on the horizon. You’re obviously doing almost everything right.

I doubt you’re looking for advice from another random yahoo on the internet, but I have some thoughts about how you could make things even better and sustain things going forward. So don’t consider these demands, exactly. They’re more like friendly suggestions, okay? Here goes:

1) Have Luis Recap the MCU in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

By the time Infinity War hits in May 2018, the MCU will have been around for ten years and a staggering 18 movies. That’s unprecedented. Even the James Bond series only turned out one film a year during its 1960s heyday . But even though the MCU has some of the most devoted fans around, not everyone has seen every movie. How do you make sure that everyone gets up to speed?

Simple. Have Michael Peña’s Luis explain it all.

Michael Peña was one of the highlights of 2015’s Ant-Man, giving a terrific performance as Scott Lang’s old cellmate Luis. He was funny without ever crossing the line into obnoxious. And one of the coolest things he did was tell long, meandering stories with little bits of vital information. But instead of just illustrating Luis’ stories with simple flashbacks, we’d see the actors lip-syncing along with Luis’ narration, like an episode of Drunk History:

I think it would be terrific to have Luis summarize the previous 18 Marvel movies this way. Tell me you wouldn’t love to see Robert Downey Jr. mouthing along with Peña going “Hey, I’m Iron Man, yo.” Or hear Luis’ voice coming out of the Black Widow or the Scarlet Witch. Or see the Hulk fighting Thor with both of them voiced by Peña. It would be awesome and hilarious.

Do it as a part of the film or, if it doesn’t fit with Infinity War‘s tone, release it as its own featurette on YouTube the week before the premiere. Guaranteed viral video. Hell, I’d settle for it just being an extra on DVD/BluRay. But one way or another, Luis recapping MCU continuity is a thing that needs to exist.

2) Get the FANTASTIC FOUR Back From Fox

By hook or by crook, this needs to happen. I’m fine with the X-Men being shunted off into a separate movie series — they honestly make more sense in their own universe — but we could really use the FF in the MCU.

The Fantastic Four are some of the greatest characters in the Marvel Universe, but they’re 0 for 4 when it comes to movies. After three failed attempts, it’s pretty obvious that Fox has absolutely NO idea what they’re doing with the property.

Forget Galactus, Ego the Living Planet, and the Skrulls. THIS is now the most unbelievable panel in Fantastic Four history.

So rather than continue to make disappointing FF movies just to keep the rights, it’s time for Fox to cut a deal. Fox, swallow your pride like Sony did with Spider-Man and admit that Marvel knows how to handle these characters better than you do. Give Marvel Studios creative control over an FF movie, you distribute it, sit back, and watch the money roll in. Because if you give it to people who how to do it right, you can milk this property forever. That’s much better than doing horrendous reboot after horrendous reboot.

The FF have almost limitless potential. They’re the explorers of the Marvel Universe, the ones who find new and unusual corners of it to play in. These characters let you do mind-bending science fiction, high adventure, superhero action, romance, comedy, and tragedy all in one movie. Reed Richards could become the MCU’s new scientific genius once you no longer have Tony Stark. Sue would provide another powerful female hero (We need more than just the Black Widow, the Scarlet Witch, the Wasp and Captain Marvel for female representation) and an opportunity for dazzling special effects sequences. Johnny would add in youthful energy and a bit of derring do, and Ben Grimm gives you both comedy and tragedy in the character of the Thing.

And if nothing else, maybe we could finally get definitive film versions of two of the greatest antagonists in comics:

Doctor Doom and Galactus. The Monarch of Latveria and the Devourer of Worlds. Accept no substitutes.

I mean, c’mon… how dumb do you have to be to screw these two up? Doctor Doom was Darth Vader 15 years before Star Wars and Galactus could be a menace like nothing else seen in cinema. Don’t give Doom electrical powers or turn Galactus into a cloud. Have faith in your material. Look at what Stan & Jack did, and just do that. If Marvel can bring Thor, Rocket Racoon, and Groot to the screen convincingly, they can certainly get these two right. And God knows the MCU could use some stronger villains.

But Doom and Galactus are just the tip of the iceberg:

Doctor Doom, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, the Watcher, Alicia Masters, Wyatt Wingfoot, Agatha Harkness, the Skrulls, the Mole Man, Annihilus, Blastaar, Diablo, the Psycho Man, the Frightful Four, the Puppet Master, Dragon Man, the Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android… the FF have one of the deepest benches of great characters in comicdom. They could revitalize and sustain the MCU for decades to come.

3) Recast, Don’t Reboot

One of the things I find fascinating about the MCU is that they’re telling stories with something akin to comic book time, but with actors who age one year for every year that passes in real life.

Sooner rather than later, though, these actors are going to start aging out of their roles. When Robert Downey, Jr. was first cast as Tony Stark, he said that he wanted to do a superhero movie now, because in ten years he’d be too old for it. That was in 2008. Avengers: Infinity War will mark the MCU’s 10th anniversary in 2018, and Downey will be 53 when it comes out. Sure, he looks great for his age, but the day is coming where RDJ will decide that he either doesn’t want to play Tony Stark any more, or that he won’t be believable in the part any more. Same with Chris Evans as Captain America. And when that day comes, Marvel needs to have a plan in place.

Pictured: One year away from “Too Old,” Tom Holland.

One school of thought says that we should just retire the characters along with the actors and gradually have other characters take over. Have Riri Williams become Ironheart, have Bucky Barnes or Sam Wilson take over as Captain America, have Jane Foster take over as Thor, and so forth. While I think that could be fun for a movie or two, eventually it would feel more like a bunch of substitutes and second-stringers than Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Sooner or later people are going to want to have the original characters back.

So I think the better long-term solution is to just gradually recast the characters. Don’t reboot, don’t change the continuity, don’t shift the MCU over to a parallel Earth or the Ultimate Universe, and most importantly, don’t comment on the characters looking any different. Just recast and let the new actors find their own interpretations of the roles. The James Bond films were smart enough to do this, and it’s become a tradition for the Bond series to get a new lead actor every decade or so. What used to be a bug has become a feature.

If nothing else, Bond’s recasting has given us a great way to track tuxedo styles over the years.

So if you see a way to bring Iron Man or Captain America’s storylines to a temporary end, do it. Give the characters a rest for a film or two. Find a Roger Moore to RDJ’s Sean Connery. And then, when the time is right. bring Shellhead and Cap back into the MCU. Think of it as putting a comic book on temporary hiatus and then relaunching it with an all-new creative team. It gives the characters — and the franchise — a shot in the arm. Because ultimately the characters are more important than any one actor.

I do, however, have one exception to the recasting rule, and it’s this:

4) Keep J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson

Face it. We’re never going to do any better.

J.K. Simmons has owned the part of J. Jonah Jameson ever since his first moment on screen in 2002’s Spider-Man, and it’s a crying shame that he’s only played the part three times.

Even in a voice cameo on The Simpsons, he absolutely nailed it:

And Marvel and Sony obviously KNOW that Simmons nailed it, too. Why else would they omit JJJ from the last three Spider-Man movies? Because they know that can’t cast anyone else as perfect as Simmons.

So… Why try to reinvent the wheel here? Just use Simmons again. Since the MCU is going to have to recast at least a few of their heroes at some point, some familiar faces among the supporting cast could help ease the transition. There’s even precedent for it: when the James Bond movies recast Bond in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, they kept the same actors in place as M, Moneypenny, and Q.

The faces may change, but the disdain for 007 carries on.

Bernard Lee played M and Desmond Llewelyn played Q until they each passed away. Lois Maxwell played Moneypenny until she was noticeably older than Timothy Dalton’s James Bond. And Dame Judi Dench continued playing M right through a series reboot. There’s no reason you couldn’t do the same thing with J.K. Simmons as Jameson. So what if Peter Parker and Aunt May are different now? Audiences love Simmons in the part, and they’d love to see him back. Let him play JJJ for as long as he wants to. Simmons is certainly game for it:

So c’mon, Marvel. Lock him down and make him an offer, already.

5) Make a SQUADRON SUPREME Movie

I don’t think it’s any secret that the Justice League movie has been a troubled production. It started shooting just after the horrible buzz about Batman v. Superman started to build, and that handicapped it right out of the gate. Since then, we’ve heard stories about extensive reshoots, characters being cut from the film, and Henry Cavill having his mustache removed via CGI. At this writing we’re about two and a half weeks out from the premiere, and audiences still don’t seem to be very excited about it. The trailers are provoking a reaction of “ehh” rather than “Oh my God, we HAVE to see this!”

And let’s face it, that makes sense. When it comes to movies, DC is flailing. Some of their casting has been great (Gal Gadot, Margot Robbie), some of it has been downright awful (Jesse Eisenberg, Jared Leto), and some of it has just been bizarre (Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa). Man of Steel,Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squadall had their moments, but overall they weren’t very good. Wonder Woman was a hit and very well-reviewed, but it’s not enough quite yet. At this point, we still don’t know if DC has truly turned the ship around, or if Wonder Woman was just a one movie exception. We don’t know what to expect from DC. People are gunshy.

But DC has definitely made some bold moves. When Zack Snyder dropped out of Justice League due to his daughter’s tragic suicide, DC made the audacious move to recruit Avengers director Joss Whedon to complete the film. And before that, Snyder made a similarly audacious move by poaching J.K. Simmons from Marvel to play Commissioner Gordon.

So what should Marvel do to counter that? Be even MORE audacious and make a Squadron Supreme movie.

The Squadron Supreme, in case you don’t know, is a Justice League-like superteam from one of Marvel’s parallel Earths. At various times in their career, they’ve been a JLA parody, a straight JLA pastiche, a Marvel MAX version of the JLA, an evil JLA, and everything in between.

And since DC still doesn’t seem too sure about how to make a Justice League movie, maybe Marvel should show them how it’s done.

There’s a few different ways you could go with a Squadron Supreme movie. You could use them as villains in an Avengers movie. For that, I’d recommend loosely adapting Steve Englehart and George Pérez’s mid-70s Avengers story where the Squadron is brainwashed into becoming stooges of their world’s military-industrial complex, until a speech by the Beast (disguised as President Nelson Rockefeller) sets them straight:

That was a pretty daring storyline for its time, and sadly, it’s still relevant today.

Or you could give them their own film and go with an adaptation of the 1985 Squadron Supreme maxi-series by Mark Gruenwald, Bob Hall, and Paul Ryan, where the now-unbrainwashed Squadron resolves to turn their ruined world into a utopia, whether the world wants it or not:

Heck, if you can make an unknown property like Guardians of the Galaxy a hit, a roman à clef of the Justice League should be child’s play.

And if the Squadron movie does well, follow it up with Marvel’s The Imperial Guard and steal DC’s thunder on a Legion of Super-Heroes movie.

Man… Was anyone better than Dave Cockrum at costume design?

Well, Marvel, those are my thoughts. Like I said, they’re just suggestions, but I think they’re good ones. So think it over, okay?

Public Service Announcement: As always, we encourage you to order stuff using the Amazon Associates links throughout this column. No matter what you order, we get a small chunk of the sale, and that helps us keep the lights on here at the AJS.

Lastly, for the past few years I’ve worked with Alzheimer’s New Jersey. They’re a great organization that provides care and support for families in New Jersey affected by Alzheimer’s and dementia. They’re also working to fund research for a cure. This past Sunday I participated in the Northern Regional Walk to Fight Alzheimer’s in the memory of my father, who suffered from dementia. Although the walk is over, we’re still taking donations until Nov. 30th. If you’ve enjoyed my column here at the AJS over the past year, I hope you’ll consider donating to my fundraising page here. Any amount is appreciated. Thanks very much.

See you next week, folks.

Share this:

Author: John Trumbull

John Trumbull has been reading comic books since 1979 and consuming pop culture since birth. A writer for the Eisner Award-nominated BACK ISSUE magazine from TwoMorrows, John has interviewed everyone in comics from Neal Adams to Marv Wolfman. He's a graduate of the Kubert School, and has drawn coloring books for DC Comics’ licensing department. John has been a stand-up comic since 2011, performing at such venues as Carolines on Broadway and the Broadway Comedy Club. He still counts Captain James T. Kirk as one of his personal heroes.
John lives in Parsippany, New Jersey with an ungodly number of comics, books, television, and movies. You can follow him on Twitter at @TrumbullComic.

30 Comments

I can go for most of that, though I would think that the Imperial Guard would fall under the X-Men movie rights umbrella.

It would be pretty bold to do a Squadron Supreme movie, while WB flails at trying to get a JLA movie out. Sad thing is, the majority of the potential audience would have no idea that it is a pastiche or parody of anything.

Those are some really good suggestions. Never would have thought of a Squadron Supreme movie myself, but yeah, I could see that working out quite well.

On the FF, this is a suggestion I made a few years ago at another blog when the topic of them being folded into the MCU came up: have the first movie be a period piece, set in the early 1960s, i.e., set it in the time they were actually created. Also, keep the origin short; my preference would be for the movie starting out in medias res, with the FF just defeating some hapless bad guy (like, say, the Wizard) and handing him over to the Feds, or Shield agents, at which point one agent tells his puzzled rookie partner who they are and how they came to be in a 5-minute flashback sequence. Then on to the action, which would ideally at some point involve going into the Negative Zone – that’s key for me, as when they leave it, they come back in the modern day (or maybe a few years earlier). I know it seems a lot like the end of the Captain America movie, but I just really want to see the FF set in the 1960s (or at least 1970s), maybe because that was the setting for the only two X-men movies I liked, First Class and Days of Future Past. The only thing I would keep different from the FF we all know and love is that in the MCU they would mainly operate in secrecy, both in the past and present, rather than being high profile celebrity heroes – or only become so in their second cinematic appearance.

And to answer the question: “Was anyone better than Dave Cockrum at costume design?” Well, yes. While I generally agree that Cockrum was one of the best, there’s one guy I would put just a little bit above him: Steve Ditko. He designed two of the most iconic looks in all superherodom: Spider-man and Iron Man’s red and gold armor, and then there’s also the redesigned Blue Beetle costume, and Hawk and Dove, Shade, and villains like the Green Goblin, Vulture, Sandman, Mysterio, Scorpion, Kraven, Electro…

On the FF, […] have the first movie be a period piece, set in the early 1960s, i.e., set it in the time they were actually created.
This is very close to my own thoughts on an MCU FF movie, Edo. Putting it in the 60s would definitely set the FF apart and give them something akin to their “Founding Fathers” status in the Marvel Universe. And yeah, I also thought of that Negative Zone idea to bring them into the present day. My only hesitancy is, like you said, bringing them into today’s MCU would give them the same sort of “Man Out Of Time” schtick that Captain America already has. And you want to keep your characters as unique as possible.

Honestly, this is probably going to be a column in itself similar to my two-parter about how to do a JLA movie from earlier this year. I’m working on an FF fancast right now, and as soon as I’m happy with that, I’ll post my thoughts about how to do an FF movie here at the AJS.

While I generally agree that Cockrum was one of the best, there’s one guy I would put just a little bit above him: Steve Ditko.
I wouldn’t really argue with you there. Ditko is one of my all-time favorite costume designers, too. So are jack Kirby and Steve Lightle. I honestly don’t know if there’s any one artist I’d rate as the all-time best costume designer. And that’s fine. You’re allowed to enjoy a multitude of people without declaring one of them to be the all-time BEST.

Unfortunately, my dream cast for FF just took a major hit when one of them became part of the MCU as a different character.

In my version of the team, they’ve been around for decades, but primarily concerned with scientific research, especially alternate dimensions, which gives them a natural tie-in to Dr. Strange, Ant-Man and Thor, and lets us cover their origin story in passing as flashbacks instead of slogging through an endless rehash.

Jeff Goldblum would be perfect as Mr. Fantastic, with Elizabeth Banks as his former TA/grad student that he married years ago. I haven’t yet settled on casting for Ben Grimm or Johnny Storm, but I can tell you that as much as I liked Michael Chiklis as the Thing, he was all wrong as Ben. I see Ben as a handsome former football quarterback type, like a Joe Namath. Johnny has to be still pretty young, at least 10 years younger than Sue. I think Justin Hartley, the guy who plays Kevin on ‘This is Us’ (and was Oliver Queen on ‘Smallville’) is the right type and has the look.

Not sure I see Goldblum at his age as Reed, but funny enough this was the second MCU character he was up for. He was originally offered the Senator role in First Avenger, but turned it down. Thankfully, because this was a much better fit and worthy use of his talents.

Though Banks would be a good Sue if you were going that old for the cast. And I’m not sure I agree that ex-football Ben was the Tom Brady QB type, and not a lineman. Look at those Kirby drawings and he’s a pretty big lug. Though how he did that and fit the size requirements to be a jet pilot, I don’t know.

I’m fine with the X-Men being shunted off into a separate movie series — they honestly make more sense in their own universe
I’ve been thinking about this lately, and while that’s an okay idea in and of itself, keeping the X-Men out of the MCU takes a lot of other characters / possibilities with them. Mostly, any mutants on the Avengers or other teams need alternate histories.

The Skrulls, I am told, are to be the villains in Captain Marvel, so at least the MCU has them.

And Marvel and Sony obviously KNOW that Simmons nailed it, too. Why else would they omit JJJ from the last three Spider-Man movies?
Well, they recast a perfect Aunt May. (Of course, in the next reboot, she’ll be played by a toddler.)

Just a suggestion of my own – could you swap out the JLA picture for a line-up that has more in common with the Squadron’s lineup? Just to make comparison easier.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, and while that’s an okay idea in and of itself, keeping the X-Men out of the MCU takes a lot of other characters / possibilities with them. Mostly, any mutants on the Avengers or other teams need alternate histories.
When I was talking about the X-Men making more sense on their own, I meant that the mutant prejudice angle makes much more sense in a world where the ONLY super-powered people are mutants. Would the average person on the street know or care whether or not a superhero or villain got their powers through an accident or a birth defect? No.

Well, they recast a perfect Aunt May.
For my money, Rosemary Harris was pretty much a perfect Classic Aunt May, but if you’re going to mix it up, yeah, Marisa Tomei was fun. She wasn’t the comic book Aunt May, but in the context of the movie, she worked.

Just a suggestion of my own – could you swap out the JLA picture for a line-up that has more in common with the Squadron’s lineup? Just to make comparison easier.
If there was one that existed, I might. But I think that would be a pretty futile search. I like the subtle parallel of the Carlos Pacheco Squadron piece using the layout from Maguire’s Justice League #1. You can probably figure out who’s who just from the character appearances.

And I agree on X-Men, and they make for a fun metaphor, and yes, the characters are missed in the MCU (particularly the women), but they don’t reslly make sense in the same universe, particularly when back in the day “radiation “ was the cause of everything. So if you get irradiated as an adult or teenager and get weird powers you’re awesome, but if you got it while in the womb, you’re a freak? At least Spider-Man had JJ’s unhealthy obsession to explain why he was hated.

I meant that the mutant prejudice angle makes much more sense in a world where the ONLY super-powered people are mutants.

I have got to put you in touch with my friend… he says exactly the same things you do. 🙂 (Which is why I’ve been thinking about it lately, natch.)

For my money, Rosemary Harris was pretty much a perfect Classic Aunt May, but if you’re going to mix it up, yeah, Marisa Tomei was fun.
I also, like M-Wolverine, liked Sally Field. I’ve liked them all, even if Marisa Tomei was so young they didn’t even call her ‘Aunt’… but Rosemary Harris was the comic book version brought to life – and that’s what I look for in a CBM.

You can probably figure out who’s who just from the character appearances.
A lot of them, and I already know several. But who’d know Dr Spectrum is supposed to be Green Lantern? Is Tom Thumb their Oberon? Who’s the guy with the arrow on his head? Does that mean he has wind powers? Red Tornado expy? And the guy with the blond ponytail?

Actually, I was mostly kidding because Sally Fields is probably the least liked. She’s good, but she was kinda phoning it in, and as with many things in the Amazing series, they did some weird things with her character.

She was no Rosemary, who was perfect, but Marisa was a lot of fun for an Ultimate style May. Not that I really like Ultimate May…but I do like Marisa. And really, the whole Aunt May age thing has never made much sense.

I still Sally Field okay, and she’s more like Peter’s aunt than Tomei is. (Which doesn’t mean I don’t like Marisa in the role.)
I actually like the two Amazing Spider-Man movies, even if nobody else does.

Whizzer was the name used for both the Squadron Supreme character and the Invaders character. The original character appeared in back-up stories, in the 40s and was part of Timely’s only (and very late to the game) super team, the All-Winners Squad. The name was used for the Flash analogue in the Squadron and for the revived character, in the Invaders/Liberty Legion crossover that went between Invaders and Marvel Premiere. The Squadron are from a parallel Earth; so, they are two different characters.

Thanks Fraser and Jeff. When I saw the speedster in the picture, the only name I could think of for him was ‘Whizzer’, but I thought to myself ‘That can’t be right; that’s the Invaders guy, Scarlet Witch’s ex-father’.

It gets even more complicated. The first Silver Age Whizzer was part of the Squadron Sinister criminal pastiche of the JLA and later takes on the identity of Speed Demon, where he continued as a Spider-Man villain. Meanwhile, the Squadron Supreme was introduced as the heroic pastiche of the JLA, with a different Whizzer. I will say this about the villain and the alternate world hero; they at least didn’t wear a mostly yellow costume, like Bob Franks. That name and that costume really just conjures up one image. The Squadron versions had far more blue in their costumes, to break up the yellow. You do wonder if, in later years, the Whizzer suffered from any prostate problems.

I saw the title of this and originally thought “wait, was this supposed to be DCCU?” But it’s a lot of good suggestions. I’m all for more Luis voiceover. Just so long as we get more Anna Akana investigative reporting too.

FF reslly shouldn’t be that hard. How FOX hasn’t just ripped off the Incredibles ripping off the FF yet I don’t know. But every few years I get my hopes up that I finally will get to see Doom done right…and sadly Corman still has done the best job. That pic though- beautiful, but looking at it on just a phone screen…am I forgetting the big Dracula vs. the FF story? Or is that some early obscure Dracula look rip off bad guy I can’t see when I stretch out the image?

Downey will probably get bored or want too much money first, but he could always play Iron Man. I mean, all his powers are in his suit and his mind. His mouth will still work. But that line about feeling like the second stringers have taken over…hmmmmm….doesn’t that sound a lot like the comics now?

JK is the only JJ. Anyone else will fail. If actors can play across comic universes, heck, even have your Captain America be a former Human Torch* there’s no reason Jameson can’t cross company continuity.

FWIW Timothy Dalton was the first to get a new Moneypenny, Caroline Bliss. Though M changed before and carried over to him, and there was never any indication they were different M’s. Not till Dench made it obvious, and now they may be back to the original again. They’ve never tried to replace Q, as Boothroyd at least, as he was irreplaceable too.

I wonder if they could pull off a SS movie. (That doesn’t sound right). Because comics are a smaller medium, and a closer fraternity, do they let things slide a bit more. But you might really be pushing the free use parody aspect of things to make a serious big budget movie about characters that are just alternative representations of another company’s characters. It’d certainly be tied up in court enough to not be worth it. And you know WB would if for no other reason than they’d know Marvel would make a better Justice League movie than they would.

I wonder if they could pull off a SS movie. (That doesn’t sound right).
That’s exactly why I avoided that abbreviation in the column.

But you might really be pushing the free use parody aspect of things to make a serious big budget movie about characters that are just alternative representations of another company’s characters. It’d certainly be tied up in court enough to not be worth it.
From what I understand, DC/Warners made noises of legal action about the Squadron Supreme maxi-series back in the 80s, but it never really went anywhere since the Marvel characters had already been around for so long. Basically, DC missed their window. And the Mark Gruenwald series took the characters even farther away from their initial inspirations.

We’d have to see, I guess. A small print run comic is a big difference than a movie for hundreds of millions of dollars. And how likely they are to fight the idea that there would be confusion of characters, in another medium. It sort of like the difference between those cheap fan made Star Trek video they let go by, and then cracking down as soon as they were raising 7 figures to make them. I’m sure it would be argued that they were just doing another take on their characters. Would they win? Maybe not, but would it ever be worth the lawsuits to bother to try and make it.

After all, WB/DC is already making Squadron Supreme movies….oh, wait, their movies are supposed to actually be featuring their characters….?

That pic though- beautiful, but looking at it on just a phone screen…am I forgetting the big Dracula vs. the FF story? Or is that some early obscure Dracula look rip off bad guy I can’t see when I stretch out the image?
Took me a minute to figure out who you meant. The Dracula-looking guy is Miracle Man, an evil magician the FF first fought in issue #3.

Same name. When Golden Age fan Roy Thomas created the Squadron Sinister he borrowed the Whizzer’s name for the Squadron’s speedster, which of course carried over to the good version of the Whizzer in the Squadron Supreme. At the time Roy probably never imagined either the Golden-Age Whizzer or the Supremes would be used as much as they have been.
Nuke was one of the later additions to the Squadron. I don’t believe he appeared before the miniseries, which expanded a lot (giving the Squadron’s Nighthawk a Catwoman like adversary for instance)

Nuke first appeared in a three-part Defenders storyline from the early 80s, along with Power Princess (Wonder Woman) and Arcanna (Zatanna). Wonder Woman was out of the JLA book when the Squadron first appeared, and Zatanna, like Firestorm, was a more recent addition to the team from the late 70s.